BuddyPress.org

As a part of my studies in a Language and Culture Masters program, we talked about how kinship relationships are the original and enduring social network. In the westernized world, friendship competes with kinship, but in the rest of the world kinship trumps friendship by far.

Therefore I am proposing that a BuddyPress plugin be created that views membership in terms of kinship. You join the network and relationships are negotiated based off of kin relationship. When you join you specify family members e.g. this is my brother’s name, this is my sister’s name, this is my mother, this is my uncle, this is my 2nd cousin, my 3rd cousin, my brother-in-law etc. Maybe a requirement of 5 family relationships would be required. Already existing members would then verify that a person fits into their family tree where they say they do as a form of administrator approval. Privacy could then be handled by kinship relationship distance. Share this with people one step away from me on family tree: parent, child, spouse. Share this with people two steps away: brothers, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles.

Dreaming big, when family members are listed that have not yet joined the social network, a wiki page is made for that person where relatives can list basic details for the person and can only be viewed by other relatives. When that family member joins the network, he can take over his wiki now as his profile.

It seems to me a key to making this work would be to find a way to merge GedCom formats with Buddypress. Being able to export family tree information in GedCom formats would also be something that users would probably appreciate.

Is anyone here feeling this idea? Anyone with some programing know how want to help with this project? Anyone want to add further ideas?